SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/6/2017
11:17 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-2 “Hope”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: John 16:33
Message of the
verses: “33 “These things I have
spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have
tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."
After missing yesterday’s SD we need, today to finish up
this sixteenth chapter of the gospel of John so we can move on to what some
have said is the most important chapter in the entire Bible, for in the 17th
chapter of John we see something that is not seen a lot in the Word of God, and
that is we see the different Persons of the godhead having a conversation. Jesus is speaking to His Father, praying to
Him that His Father will make sure to answer all of the promises that Jesus has
given in the last four chapters which we have been studying for a long time.
We are taking about hope in this SD and we have mentioned
that the hope we are talking about here is a sure thing, not something that we
don’t know will happen or not, but this hope is something that will happen as
it is promised by God.
Jesus states that in this world believers will have
tribulation, but then in a prophetic statement He says that He has overcome the
world, which will take place at the cross.
So this has not yet happened but will happen soon. The disciples will see this in their lives
especially when the Day of Pentecost comes which is the day that the Holy
Spirit would come upon them and He would radically transform these men of fear into
men of great courage, and this would happen even after they abandoned Jesus on
this night when He was arrested, and I know that this would be a very difficult
time for all of them, especially Peter.
We see in the 2nd chapter of Acts that Matthias was selected
to take the place of Judas, who had betrayed Jesus.
I have to say that the hope that the disciples needed and
came was as mentioned the Holy Spirit of God and what a life changer He is to a
believer, especially to these men who had been with Jesus these past three
years depending on Him for everything and now they will understand and will remember
the things that Jesus had promised to them so that they would realize the truth
of the promises even years later.
Remember that John was probably in his 90’s when he wrote this gospel,
and also the book of Revelation, and the three letters that he wrote, and there
is no way humanly that he could have remembered all the things that Jesus spoke
without the Holy Spirit giving him the ability to remember them. This must have been a very precious time for
John to remember clearly the hope that came from Jesus Christ as he penned
these words that the Holy Spirit gave to him.
John MacArthur writing about the things that the Spirit
of God did through the disciples writes the following:
“The peace and hope that characterized
them is the same that has characterized true believers in every age. Being assured of what they believed and hoped
for, and convinced of what they did not see (cf. Heb. 11:1), the saints of old ‘were
stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with
the sword; they went about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being destitute,
afflicted, ill-treated (men of whom the world was not worthy), wandering in
deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground’ (vv. 37-38). Believers today can find that same courage of
conviction when their ‘faith and hope are in God’ (1 Peter 1:21). They need not fear persecution or even death,
because they know ‘the God of hope’ (Rom. 15:13) and Jesus Christ, ‘the hope of
glory’ (Col. 1:27; cf. 1 Tim. 1:1).
Having trusted in the death and resurrection of Christ, they are eternally
secure in His love—knowing that ‘neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height,
nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate [believers]
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus [their] Lord’ (Rom. 8:38-39).
“Significantly, Jesus last words to
His disciples in the upper room, before praying for them and departing for
Gethsemane, were love, faith, and hope.
In the face of their greatest trial in the next few days, the Lord
reminded them of those three foundational truths—truths that would subsequently
mark their ministries for the rest of their lives and also mark all the saints
to follow them. Having done all He could
to prepare them for what was about to follow them. Having done all He could to prepare them for
what was about to take place, Jesus now turned in prayer to His Father, knowing
that only He could truly protect the disciples in the following hours.”
Answer to our last Bible
question: “Satan” (Job. 1:9).
Today’s Bible
question: “In what place did Paul and
Barnabas preach together in the synagogue?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/6/2017 11:49 AM
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